Unilever Suffers N9.5bn Loss After Stopping Home Care Products, Others

… Obi Of Onitsha To Resign From Board In December

Unilever Niger Plc has suffered N3.27bn restructuring cost after shutting down its Home Care Category and another N6.2bn foreign exchange revaluation loss, THE WHISTLER can confirm.

This was revealed in the company’s 9-month interim financial accounts analysed by THE WHISTLER.

On March 17, 2023, Unilever announced it was repositioning its portfolio by exiting the home care and skin cleansing categories to concentrate on higher growth opportunities.

Unilever told shareholders that the exit of these two categories over 2023 was envisaged to result in an overall improvement in profitability and growth.

However, the company’s books showed that at least N3.2bn has been lost in the form of restructuring cost after shutting down the Home Care Unit where it produces Omo multi-active detergent, sunlight washing powder, sunlight washing bar soap and sunlight dish washing liquid.

The company also made a U-turn as it now wishes to continue the production of skin cleansing products.

“The production for home care category ceased in June 2023 and sales ceased in September, 2023. The production and sale for skin cleansing category has been extended to December 2023,” the company said.

Although the company generated N81.57bn in revenue and made N1.67bn after tax in profit, it was plagued by Nigeria’s forex crisis.

The revaluation loss arising from foreign currencies denominated balances in respect of trade loan was N6.29bn while it spent N52.6bn on the cost of goods sold making its cost of sales to rise to N62.17bn in September 2023 compared to N47.58bn in 2022.

While it released its accounts for the 9-month, Unilever also announced the resignation of His Royal Majesty, Nnaemeka A. Achebe, Obi of Onitsha, as a non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Board with effect from 31st December 2023.

His resignation was following retirement after serving for two decades as Chairman of Unilever since March 2003.